Under The Radar: Team Latta eye Dublin Racing Festival glory

Thisistheway travelled well through her race for Cian Quirke in the mares’ handicap hurdle at Down Royal last Tuesday.  Seventh of the nine runners jumping the first flight, she went nicely in mid-division as the race settled down, along the inside.  Fourth as they raced across the top of the track as the main body of the field started to concertina, she moved easily in among horses as they raced down the hill towards the second last flight.  

Eased towards the outside when they straightened up for home, Thisistheway joined the leader Albatala as they rose to the penultimate obstacle, but her rider resisted the urge to ask her for her effort at that point.  Motionless as they raced between the final two flights, as Alex Harvey rowed away on Albatala to the right, the front two clear, Quirke spotted a stride at the final flight and asked his mare up.  She pinged the obstacle, landed running and eased away from her rival on the run-in to win by a margin of four and a half lengths, which could have been more. 

“We were hoping that she would run well,” says Andrew Latta, assistant to his mother Yvonne, trainer of the Doyen mare.  “It was a last-minute decision to enter her.  We were going to go straight to Leopardstown, but the ground was so good at Down Royal, so we decided to allow her take her chance.  We would have been happy if she had been placed, so to go and win it was a bonus.” 

It was Thisistheway’s first run since she had been beaten in a handicap hurdle at Wexford in October.  The ground was just too soft for her that day. 

“We probably made too much use of her too at Wexford,” says Latta.  “She was fresh.  She had won her maiden hurdle at Cork just two weeks earlier, and we didn’t do a whole lot with her between the two races.  She settled nicely in behind on Tuesday.  I’d say that it was a weak enough race, but she travelled well on the ground.” 

Thisistheway’s roots in the Lattas’ Wexford operation run deep.  Andrew’s dad, Charlie, bought her grandam Party Woman as a foal.  Trained by Martin Lynch, Party Woman won a bumper and she won twice over hurdles, but a chipped bone in her knee meant that her racing career was curtailed after just seven runs.  She was such a talented mare though, so the Lattas decided that they would breed from her. 

The best of Party Woman’s progeny was probably Miss Mitch, who won a point-to-point at Askeaton before joining Robert Alner and winning twice over hurdles and twice over fences in Britain, reaching a peak rating of 142. 

Another of her foals, Little Mitch, wasn’t bad either.  She raced in Charlie Latta’s colours and Yvonne Latta trained her to win a bumper and two hurdle races.  Thisistheway is Little Mitch’s first foal. 

“We didn’t think an awful lot of Thisistheway at first,” says Latta.  “Her homework was not good at the start.  It still isn’t.  But we brought her away for a schooling bumper, and she won that by ten lengths.  We thought, they mustn’t have been very good, the horses in behind her.  Then we brought her to another schooling bumper, and she won that as well.  It was only then that we started to believe that she might be quite good.” 

The Lattas have had other good ones.  They may concentrate mainly on point-to-points, but they have still had plenty of success on the track, both on the Flat and over Jumps.  Everylittlestep won three races on the Flat on the spin the summer before last, over distances from a mile to nine and a half furlongs, improving from an official handicap rating of 49 to a mark of 70.  Spring Morning sprang an 18/1 surprise in a 12-furlong handicap at Tipperary the previous summer.  Imperial Lord and Moonlit Wings won bumpers.  Belle Le Grand won a bumper at Fairyhouse in October and is now with Dan Skelton. 

Thisistheway is very much with Yvonne and Andrew Latta.  She doesn't fool them at home anymore.  They know that she reserves it all for the racecourse. 

Winner of her bumper at Wexford on her racecourse debut in August 2023, they thought enough of their then four-year-old filly to allow her take her chance in the Listed Mucklemeg Bumper on her next run. 

She went off at 125/1 for the Grade Three mares' bumper at the Punchestown Festival last May and, racing for the first time in 215 days, she outperformed market expectations by a long way in finishing sixth, less than nine lengths behind the winner Familiar Dreams, and less than seven lengths behind Saturday’s Solerina Hurdle winner Aurora Vega. 

The Listed Paddy and Maureen Mullins Mares’ Handicap Hurdle this Sunday, on the second day of the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown, has been on her radar for a little while, since long before last Tuesday.  An 11lb hike for her Down Royal won on Tuesday takes her up to a mark of 115, and that should leave her with a nice racing weight in Sunday’s race. 

“The 11lb might have been a little harsh,” says Latta.  “It may not have been that strong a race that she won at Down Royal.  But she is in great form, and hopefully the ground will be good enough for her.  We hope that she can go well.”